Trouble Brewing , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Paul Carroll

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112 pages

English

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Ready, Steady, Cook meets The Full Monty... Brian Parkin, a TV celebrity chef whose star is on the wane, is enlisted as a somewhat unlikely figurehead to help save a Yorkshire brewery in this bittersweet tale. Brimdale is facing closing time as it strives to protect its famous Brim 'miracle' ale. Centuries of tradition, as well as jobs, are at stake and a rival brewery will stop at nothing to nobble its pesky competitor. Brian joins forces with some unlikely allies in the shape of an award-winning historical novelist, a retired cricketer and the world champion ferret legger to send out a message to the world that miracles can happen and Brim must be saved. The campaigners' antics raise smiles and tears in equal measure. The town unites, love flourishes, a mother and daughter are reconciled and unlikely heroes emerge. But as the clock ticks down to last orders, is Brim and its miraculous powers all it's cracked up to be?Trouble Brewing is contemporary, warm-hearted, full of quirky characters, clever plot twists and amusing set pieces. The book explores celebrity culture, romance, the art of the white lie and throws in Brexit as a chaser. Witty, intelligent and humorous, Paul Carroll's latest novel will appeal to readers looking for a cheering and enjoyable satire.

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 mai 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781788032209
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2017 Paul Carroll

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781788032209

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Contents
Amuse-Bouche

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine

Digestif
Acknowledgements
The Author

Amuse-Bouche
Brian Parkin had given considerable thought to how he might commit suicide. He’d spent hours on the Internet typing in a succession of search combinations without quite stooping to the obvious, ‘best way to take your own life?’ Brian was surprised to learn that lack of exactitude in his research was no hindrance to getting to the heart of the matter. He was soon immersed in a sea of advice promoting various ways of saddling the pale horse, each detailing the different scales of agony and speed of demise to be expected. All of which were leavened with entreaties to either call the Samaritans or to ‘stop bleating and get on with it’. He worried that in even using the search function on his computer in this way some do-gooder, or even the police, would be alerted and suddenly arrive at his doorstep.
But now he was ready. He carefully checked the ingredients arrayed before him on the kitchen work surface. Each item meticulously apportioned and waiting to be pressed into service – olive oil, butter, cornflour, milk, plain cream cheese, eggs, basil, Gruyère cheese, cream. He took a bowl of mushrooms from the fridge and set them down. Now, finally, the preparation of his last supper could begin.
Despite his nickname of ‘The Barnsley Chop’ Brian was fastidious and precise when it came to cooking. There was no bish, bash, bosh about his approach in the kitchen. A place for everything, and everything in its place. It’s what had made him the most famous celebrity chef in the country. Once.
He ran his eye over the table setting laid out in the corner of the kitchen. White linen tablecloth, best bone china dinner plates and sterling silver cutlery, the latter a hitherto unused gift from his agent. The bottle of Brunello di Montalcino he’d opened some two hours before breathed easily in the cosy domesticity of the setting.
He turned his attention back to the ingredients assembled in front of him and picked up one of the mushrooms. It was six inches high, and quite unlike any fungi he’d ever cooked before. Olive-brown in colour and with a cap around five inches in diameter, it gave off a faint odour of roses. Inverting the mushroom, Brian could see the wave-like edge of its radiating fibrous tissue and its crowded white gills. Amanita Phalloides . The Death Cap.
Brian knew exactly what his demise would be like. He had done a course on mushroom hunting once and knew what to avoid, and why. Shortly after eating the mushrooms the alpha-Amanitin toxin would set to work ushering in stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhoea. But that was nothing – it was the irreversible disintegration of his liver and kidneys that would kill him. Normally, one mushroom could be lethal and death could take days. Brian had six mushrooms, one for each ramekin of fatal fluffiness, in order to hasten the rapid onset of heart failure.
In the end, it was cutting in the Sunday Splash that made up his mind. He would poison himself using the very craft, experience and knowledge they now derided. He’d show them. He’d show them all. His ex-wife, who dropped him as soon as the money dried up. His agent, for whom stabbing him in the back once wasn’t enough. The television producers who had all looked the other way. The media who had mocked his misfortunes. The public, the bloody, fickle public. Soon they’d all be sorry.
Brian had made his signature dish of double-cooked mushroom soufflé many times before – he’d even led thousands of aspiring chefs through the recipe live on air for his TV programme Four Gas Rings and an Oven . But that was a few years back now, when his name was in demand to endorse everything from Aunt Bessie’s to Zabaglione. Now there were no cameras, overhead or otherwise, to grab the close up of the saucepans and no need to think about the one he’d prepared earlier. He was on his own.
Momentarily, he gazed out of the window of his Surrey pile to the paddock and the sixteen acres beyond. His paddock and his sixteen acres, purchased on the back of all his hard work and sacrifice. White cumulus clouds cushioned the sun against the blue sky on this finest of May afternoons. It looked as if God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. Well, maybe the world of the new owners who were moving in next week.
Brian extracted from his wallet a smudged newspaper cutting and began to read. Over the past few days he had read the same piece a hundred times. Repetition hardly weakened its sting.

Who’s Smiling Now?
When does a TV chef become a former TV chef? That’s a question I asked myself when I discovered by how far Brian Parkin, ‘The Barnsley Chop’ as millions knew him, had passed his sell-by date. ‘Is he still alive?’ you ask. Barely, is the answer.
But first the good news – Parkin is still involved in whetting the nation’s appetite. Not as the stellar celebrity renowned for his ‘no-nonsense cooking with a twist’ but as the face of a series of two-minute recipe films on the website of a Yorkshire cheesemaker. The title of the series? Why, ‘Say Cheese’ of course.
Where did it all go wrong for Brian? Being accused of improper sexual advances towards a supermarket delicatessen employee started the rot. The girl, somewhat besotted by Brian’s beefiness, was proven to have made up the charges – she’d never actually met him – but that didn’t stop one red top precipitously using the headline, ‘Celebrity Chef sticks his sausage in bacon slicer’.
Settlements aside, and an apology on Pg 15, the attendant ridicule signalled the start of the slide for Parkin. As work offers dried up his wife decided that her husband’s plain fayre couldn’t compete with the nouvelle cuisine being served up by Brian’s agent. A lengthy and costly divorce later and Brian was as relevant to today’s TV as Love Thy Neighbour.
The moral of the story? The fame banquet doesn’t last forever, which is certainly a lesson some present-day disciples of drizzle would do well to heed. Never mind, Brian. It was good while it lasted. At least you made it to the cheese course. Don’t forget to smile for the webcam now …

Bastard, thought Brian, before folding the cutting up and reinserting it into his wallet.

Chapter One
‘So this is what all the fuss is about.’ DeWayne Talley III of Kokomo, Indiana, framed his half-pint glass against the etched Victorian pub window and surveyed the distinguished golden colour of the ale within. The late afternoon May sun pouring through the dusty pane into the gloomy interior of the inn imbued the contents with celestial effulgence. ‘Let’s put it to the test.’
Before he could take a swig of beer a flat, booming voice from the other end of the bar splintered the reverence of his act of worship. ‘I thought you Yanks thought big? Why settle for half a miracle when you can have a full one?’ Godfrey Dransfield, ‘Sir Godfrey’ to everyone in town, harboured a disdainful disregard for anyone who drank halves, women included, and was fed up of tourists ruining his favourite pub. And he should know as he spent most of his waking hours in the Fountain Head.
‘Sorry?’ came the confused response from the hapless American visitor who still had to cross off ‘Sample Brim beer in Brimdale’ from his Day Three itinerary.
‘Sorry? For what?’ deadpanned Godfrey. ‘Maybe if you drank a pint you might be able to speak proper English afterwards. That’d be a miracle.’
‘That’s enough, Godfrey,’ snapped Peggy Weatherill, the landlady of the hostelry in which this touching example of the two countries’ special relationship was playing out. ‘I think it’s high time you were getting yourself off home.’
‘I’m only being helpful to our transatlantic visitor, Peggy. But if that’s how you feel, I’ll take a rain check .’ Turning to the hapless tourist Godfrey added, ‘Unlike you, I will be back .’ Chuckling at his own wit Godfrey whistled his Border Collie, Bouncer, and headed unsteadily for the door.
‘Sorry about that,’ Peggy said to the visitor. ‘We do have some colourful characters around here. It goes with the territory.’ She was used to intoning this standa